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Russia Halts Currency Trading
Indefinitely; Five Banks Merge

By

Mark Whitehouse and

Betsy McKay Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal

Updated Aug. 28, 1998 1:26 a.m. ET

Seeking to avert a free fall of the Russian currency and protect its dwindling reserves, Russia's Central Bank took a big step back into the prereform era, indefinitely canceling trade on the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange.

The decision shuts down until further notice the venue where the ruble's rate against the dollar and other foreign currencies is usually set. It leaves the Russian stock market as the only functioning financial...